Mike S.: “My suggestion to Rav Shafran and others is to leave the questions of Torah and science to those who are deeply familiar with both fields.” Would that include you? I see you are very confident to express an opinion. Or do you mean that questions of Torah and science should be left to those who have already expressed themselves as concuring with the idea that evolution and Torah are compatible? There are not that many people around with strong knowledge of both, as well as being big in yiras shamayim. Prof Leo Levi wrote in his book Science and Torah: “It was a bad theory.” He does not hold of evolution. Lee Spetner: “There is no evidence or any argument in favor of that postulate. Moreover, both theory and evidence are against it (neo-darwinian mechanisms of information buid-up).” Rabbi Kaplan does not address evolution in is book, only the age of the universe, and he was careful to point out that they are not the same.

On the other hand, there is no possible scientific argument against the idea the Hashem created a finished world. Their are theological arguments against that idea, but here, I assume all would agree, expertise in science in not a factor in answering the question “Would Hashem do that?”. See in Emes L’Yaakov on “Chor v’chom … lo yishbosua” where he rights very clearly that Hashem intenionaly made the world (at the Mabul) look older than it is. Rabbi Slifkin in his book, and others, have asked (paraphrasing) “Fine, but would He create a fake prehistory?”. Strong question but it is something for Rabbis to answer, not scientists.

Darwin’s full quote (from the Introduction to his The Origin of Species) reads thus:

This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice.

No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.

Darwin is explaining that he has simply catalogued so much data that supports the evolutionary model of development that he cannot present it all in this one volume. Darwin was not suggesting that his model was wrong — only that intrepid and inquisitive readers would rightly wish to examine all of the evidence gathered to date; as is always done and required in scientific investigation and peer review.

There is today far less question than in Darwin’s day but that evolutionary models accurately describe the development and propagation of life on earth. Anyone who wishes to dissent from evolutionary theory is free to present a scientifically consistent thesis that will be subsequently evaluated by thousands of independent scientists around the globe.

A pronouncement that “God made it!” does not qualify as a scientifically consistent (or valid) thesis — whether regarding evolution, or regarding particle physics, astronomy, geology, orbital mechanics or any other branch of human knowledge.

This is simply a misunderstanding of relativity and its application (or rather lack of application) to this case.

I’m fine with agreeing to disagree – I believe it is not hypocritical for a religious believer who bases his beliefs on Divine Revelation to denounce a know-it-all attitude among scientists who base their beliefs on physical things, and you feel it is. But I do want to set some factual things straight:

I did not write that relativity has anything to do with geocentricity. I wrote that a premise of Einstein’s relativity – and it was the beginning of his thought experiments on the topic – is that an object’s movement is only meaningful in relation to another object. That makes the geo/helio-centric models (at least at the most fundamental level) meaningless. I suggested that the Talmud’s seemingly geocentric statements may have been intended in a philosophical or theological vein, not a physical one. Here, too, you can disagree, but that is how I understand things, based on my belief that the rabbis of the Talmud were orders of magnitude more perceptive than we are.

As to the constructive-ness of criticism and pointing out error, I don’t think you claimed that anything in Rabbi Shafran’s article was “wrong” (you even claimed you have written something similar). You denounced him for daring to write it considering his religious views. That is what I consider inappropriate.

There, too, though, you seem to disagree. So be it.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the hypocrisy issue. But to clarify, I did not “call Agudas Israel ‘hypocritical’ because one of its people cautioned that science changes.” I called it hypocritical for denouncing the intolerance of some regarding alternate theories about the development of the universe when Agudas Israel exhibits far, far worse intolerance itself – and even from a Torah perspective, there is plenty of reason to refrain from overconfidence, with the Shevus Yaakov as Exhibit A.

In terms of whether this adds something “constructive” to the discussion – it is just as constructive as those who denounce viewpoints that they consider unacceptable. If you feel that something is wrong, it is often (although not always) valuable to point it out.

I don’t want to get into a discussion about whether geocentric references in the Gemara and Medresh are meant literally or philosophically (in other words, implies how we humans are to look at ourselves – with an attitude of “for me the universe was created”)

Also, the most basic premise of relativity, as you know, is that all movement is only meaningful relative to other objects – so there is no real meaning to what is in the “center” of any part of space, much less what is the center of the universe). And the fact that you can find an acharon who takes a position, either in metziyus or halacha, that is different from the normative one is not of any significance.

None of that, anyway, is “revolutionary” in the sense that germ theory overturned the theory of “humours”, or that Einstein established a fundamental understanding of nature that Newton never dreamed about. It is nothing like the discovery of DNA, or of black holes.

A similar revolution in Torah would mean an undermining of a yesod of our mesora, like denying that Moshe received the Torah, or that we have free will. To many Orthodox Jews, the idea that man evolved from a common ancestor of apes rather than was specially formed by Hashem directly is simply not acceptable. To you, it might be acceptable, but no one is a hypocrite just because he dares to believe, based on the Torah’s plain reading, that man was a special creation but still criticizes some scientists, who have no mesorah and judge only physical evidence, for being so sure of themselves at any time in history, including today.

The point I made at the beginning is that your calling Agudas Israel “hypocritical” because one of its people cautioned that science changes added nothing constructive to any discussion.

You can either admit that that’s true, or you can defend what you wrote. What you choose to do will say much.

The article deals with scientists, people who are dedicated to finding truths in nature. And what is says is that there have been revolutions in science in the past and so scientists should not assume that today’s scientific wisdom will necessarily be tomorrow’s.

Do you believe the same about Torah? Have there been revolutions in our mesorah that overturned previous understandings? I don’t think you are Reform. You can disagree with the writer’s interpretations of Torah sources (even though he didn’t write anything about his own beliefs about the creation of species, only about his feeling that we should still be skeptics about science), but you cannot call him a hypocrite for considering science changeable but not Torah.

Ori: Do they distinguish between the two? I’m not asking this to be argumentative, I’m asking this because I’m an outsider who honestly does not know.

A few other minor comments on what you wrote –
R. Shafran is not merely an Agudah person – he is writing these columns as a representative of the Agudah. And I was not making any reference to Agudah’s “religious beliefs”, but rather to their beliefs about the natural world. And I do not expect Cross-Currents to be a confessional site, but I do expect it not to be hypocritical.

I know it’s school-yard childish to say “he started it” but sometimes it does make a difference where something began. I must point out to you that it was Rabbi Slifkin who chose to not comment on the substance of the posting but rather on what he saw as the irony of the fact that what was posted was posted by a particular poster. I don’t read comments often on postings and therefore don’t post often. But it does seem to me that a blog like CrossCurrents should be a place where disagreeing is fine but personal criticism — like insinuations of hypocrisy aren’t. I apologize to Rabbi Slifkin for thinking I know his motives. But I still don’t think he was adding anything of substance, of benefit to the Jewish people, by what he wrote.

- This poster is not willing to judge Rabb Slifkin’s comments on their own merit without making assumptions about his motives.

I’m not familiar with your books (other than that some say that you show not enough – at least in their eyes – skepticism about some things). If you do really stress the overconfidence of scientists, then I guess you have written pretty much what Rabbi Shafran did. Your preoccupation with whether he as an Agudat Yisrael person has a right to say it seems petty. And it’s logically wrong. See Melech Press’s comment (#13) above. Just because somebody has a deep belief in something based on a revelation or experience doesn’t prevent him from insisting that others who claim to base their beliefs on hard evidence alone actually have hard evidence for a belief they hold.

As a talmud scholar, you know what a “lishitatayhu” is, an argument leveled against the holder of a position based on another position of that proponent. The arguer doesn’t have to hold that “other position” himself to make his point. He only has to show the inconsistency. The scientific establishment claims to be open and objective. But, Rabbi Shafran claims, it refuses to even allow for dissent in its ranks against Darwinism. Rabbi Shafran’s religious beliefs (like yours) are, I imagine, not based on scientific evidence. But scientist’s beliefs are, at least that’s what they say.

If you want to defend evolution or evolutionists, fine. But just saying how ironic you find it that people who judged your books negatively (if that is even so in Rabbi Shafran’s case) can dare insist that scientists truly act like scientists is unbecoming somebody of your stature.

As far as Cross Currents is concerned, I don’t follow it constantly but I know I have seen self-criticism in it. But more important, I don’t think it is meant to be a confessional-site. It is meant (I think) to present a spectrum of unapologetic Orthodox thoughts. If you don’t like that, well don’t read it. And if you want to read criticism of Orthodox Jews and organizations, well there are sure a lot of other sites you can find that do that all the time (and don’t even care if what they write is true!).

Are many scientists in fact haughty and not open to any possibility of doubt of their ‘faith’ in evolution? Absolutely. But is Agudath Israel open to any possibility of doubt of their faith that evolution (and even the age of dinosaurs) is false? They are even less open than the overly-dogmatic scientists.

One of the reasons why certain Cross-Currents essays turn off so many people is their triumphalism and constant criticism of others. When such criticism is also true of the authors’ community itself – and certainly when it is even more true – this makes it all the more disappointing.

It’s understandable that you are still upset at the rejection of your books by some rabbis, but please don’t personalize your feelings by criticizing Rabbi Shafran and Agudath just because he wrote the posting. Deal with what he wrote, not what you associate him with. Are many scientists in fact haughty and not open to any possibility of doubt of their ‘faith’ in evolution, or is that not true? I’m no expert but what I have read leads me to think that there is more truth to this posting than your personal experience is letting you see.

Ori: But do we expect Rabbis, who supposedly have a truth handed down from Sinai, to be as open as scientists who are empirically trying to find out what is true?

It seems that for scientists to be dogmatic is a rejection of what science stands for. For Rabbis, it’s just the way Torah is transmitted. Or am I missing something?

The respected science journalist Sharon Begley (of Newsweek) recently wrote an article that many people also got all upset about. She didn’t question evolution but she did call attention to a study that undermines a pretty basic part of the current understanding of how it can and cannot work.

She writes in her blog that “Among the things that scientists don’t like is having their grant proposal denied, having their papers rejected by eminent journals, and not getting tenure. Among the things they really, really hate (based on the comments I got on my column last month on Lamarckian inheritance) is for a science writer to describe studies that show that the Modern Synthesis (the marriage of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian natural selection acting on random variation (which forms the basis of evolutionary biology) is not the last word. “Why is a creationist writing for Newsweek??!!” and “there is no evidence of Lamarckism!!!” were among the more polite comments.”
And she ends her entry with these sentences: “This study is the first to show that genetic defects in neuronal transmission and hence memory, caused by a mutation, can be at least partly reversed by an experience a mother has long before she is pregnant. Might this happen in people? Obviously it is way too soon to speculate, so let me leave it at this: the reflexive antipathy of many biologists to the possibility of Lamarckian inheritance reflects badly on the scientific community’s reputation for openness to new ideas and to data that challenge existing ones.”

That last sentence is exactly Rabbi Shafran’s point.

The data is aboslutely not neutral, but, as usual, the people who already know their conclusion before analyzing the data don’t know the data very well. There’s every evidence that our DNA was not “designed.” It’s mostly garbage. Not garbage as in, “We have no idea how that got there,” but garbage as in, “That part of the DNA is a transposon. That part is a duplicated gene which no longer works (but, don’t worry, there’s still a working gene). That part doesn’t do anything any more but did in a distant ancestor. That part is a copy of viral DNA which was incorporated into a distant ancestor’s DNA.” I think the problem is that many people here are used to authority emanating from people who speak from the gut and whose ideas then become dogma. Science does not operate like this. This is not to say scientists are never wrong, but that an edifice is not built upon sand. Scientists know the mutation rates of DNA and how closely or distantly one species is related to another. Essential parts of DNA are conserved whereas the majority of garbage can mutate much more quickly. It’s not coicidence the there is more similar garbage in more simlar places in more closely related organisms. I don’t want to get too technical, but suffice it to say that well accepted science is not going to disintegrate before your boich svarah.

“It is also a form of intellectual primitivism to assert that he will not consider theories that are motivated by religious belief. The motivation behind a theory is irrelevant to its validity. ”

I find it hard to believe anyone has ever said that. Consider, sure (if there’s time). Expect to find true, no. When people are forced to have certain beliefs, one doesn’t expect their justifications to be convincing.

“What he is alluding to is the confusion between scientific method, which of course must be employed in the investigation of theories whatever their motivation, and scientistic materialism, which asserts the acceptability only of certain types of conclusions regardless of the evidence for or against them.”

Ummm .. no. Wouldn’t science be awefully stupid if it were acceptable to postulate, “Ich mein, because that how the abeshter feert the velt,” to every scientific question? Why do the planets revolve around the sun? Because hashem said so. Why does it rain? Because hashem said so. Why are there volcanoes? Because hashem said so. The scientific method ASSUMES naturalism. Now, whether naturalism is all there is or not is debatable, but no scientist advocates using the supernatural as part of the scientific method.

I’m not sure how to solve this. Muslim philosophers in the middle ages suggested that “G-d did it” is the universal solution and that’s OK. Christian philosophers said that G-d is rational and therefore His works should be intelligible. That’s probably a large part of the reason modern science came from Christendom and not Dar-al-Islam.

When scientists over-reach and attempt to draw metaphysical conclusions from scientific data, by all means feel free to ignore them. This would certainly include any statements that science proves (or disproves) the existence of G-d. By definition, science can have nothing at all to say about an omnipotent being not bound by the laws of nature. Likewise, statements about mutations being “random” and evolution not having a “purpose” are scientific only to the extent that one uses what the philosophers of science call an operational definition for the terms in quotes. When that is done, biology is not anything that an Orthodox Jew need find troubling; when scientists say things like that using broader definitions they are no longer making scientific statements.

It is also a form of intellectual primitivism to assert that he will not consider theories that are motivated by religious belief. The motivation behind a theory is irrelevant to its validity. Dawkin’s frequent assertions that he must believe in the neo-Darwinian synthesis because of his atheism neither proves nor disproves the truth of evolutionary theory. What he is alluding to is the confusion between scientific method, which of course must be employed in the investigation of theories whatever their motivation, and scientistic materialism, which asserts the acceptability only of certain types of conclusions regardless of the evidence for or against them.